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2001 Storage revenues reflect the compounded effects of tight
IT budgets, the availability of bargain surplus storage inventory, and better
utilization of users' installed storage resources, in addition to severe price
cuts. This explains that storage capacities did not follow the same trend, and
continued to grow, though at a slower rate. Enterprise storage capacity
increased 30% in 2001, as compared to a sustained 60% in the previous five
years. The report forecasts that capacity will resume a more aggressive growth
starting the middle of 2003
A number of SAN and NAS products have been
deployed in production environment, with very satisfactory results. SAN in
particular, has gained significant momentum
The bulk of the revenue
associated with SAN is still in the disk array hardware and bundled software,
though its importance decreases every year, while software and components grow
faster. Both SAN and dedicated NAS system revenue increased 18 and 35% in 2001
after having more than doubled in 1999 and in 2000. They are expected to
continue with a slower ramp up in 2002, and will not resume the growth rates
anticipated last year before 2004.
A surge of Innovations
The
economy slump has not hindered designers' ability to innovate. The past eighteen
months have seen a surge in the number of well funded start-ups; over one
hundred companies are identified in the report. New technological advances are
about to completely change the landscape of storage networking. No vendor can
ignore this movement, as some of the technologies that seemed promising last
year may end up being stop-gap short term solutions
The most
significant technological advances emerge in three fields that are about to
converge. First, is a family of new hybrid devices offering multi-protocol low
latency routing and switching capability. Data acceleration techniques form the
second field, involving parallel processing often combined with grand scale
silicon implementation, in products dubbed "Storage servers". Thirdly,
come virtualization and aggregation engines which overcome some of the most
serious shortcomings of NAS and SAN.
The report highlights and analyzes
ten major areas in SAN and NAS evolution, quantifying the market through 2004,
and identifying the major players. These areas are: interfaces and
interconnects, fabric components, management software, devices and arrays,
storage servers, data accelerators, virtualization, Content Delivery Networking,
Data security, and SAN and NAS convergence
Interfaces and
Interconnects
Two key trends are shaping the evolution of drive
interfaces. The first is serialization, reflected in the
Serial ATA and
Serial Attached SCSI
initiatives. The second trend is point-to-point, versus shared bandwidth
topologies like buses or loops.
Several data storage and networking
vendors support iSCSI
which appears as the most likely long term winner. It will emerge first in small
and medium businesses that have shunned FC due to its perceived cost and
complexity. Though it is not expected to replace Fibre Channel, it is a serious
threat to FCIP and iFCP. For iSCSI to take off, TCP off-load engines (TOE) will
be required so that the TCP processing can be off-loaded to the HBAs/Network
Interface Cards. TOE is a critical component.
Fabric Components
Much
has happened in the areas of fabric with HBA,
switches and
Directors in terms of functionality, interoperability and price. Most HBA
vendors introduced iSCSI HBAs, and most Fibre Channel proponents aligned the
design of their new family to be protocol agnostic.
The combination of
multiple protocol alternatives, network-centric system and virtualization is
giving rise to a new product segment in the system network switch market. We
call them multi-protocol switches, but they are also referred to as Routing
Switches, utility switches or global switches. These devices combine modular,
multi-protocol switching architectures with port-level system I/O routing
intelligence. They have the potential to reduce dramatically the complexity of
storage deployment and administration, and may be the best vehicle to SAN and
NAS convergence.
Brocade
and McDATA dominate the
switch market. INRANGE
and QLogic are strong
challengers, and a number of emerging companies are innovators in the new
muti-protocol family.
Management Software
Significant
advances were accomplished in the implementation of reliable management of SAN.
The total storage management revenue is expected to grow 17% in 2002, before
resuming a more aggressive ramp in 2003.
SRM and Replication
software are growing faster. Replication is most commonly used in three distinct
application domains: disaster recovery, data warehousing, and content delivery.
EMC continues to hold
number one position in open software revenue, in spite of their poor financial
results in 2001.
Devices and Arrays
Along the lines of
low cost RAID devices
there is an interesting trend to use IDE (Intelligent Drive Electronics)
interface disk drives because of their lower price. An IDE disk drive can be
one third or less than the price of a comparable SCSI or Fibre Channel Several
SAN and NAS companies are looking at low cost storage appliances using IDE
drives to address the more cost sensitive and lower performance markets
Storage
Servers
Speed, scalability and ease-of-use are prime objectives in
the design of storage systems. Next generation architectures focus on improving
the data processing activities via hardware in order to provide higher
throughput. Known techniques are put into new usage to overcome some of the
limitations of the traditional computer architecture. These techniques involve
primarily silicon components and parallel processing, with additional
flexibility and manageability. Storage servers and Appliances strive in making
complex technology much easier to integrate into existing networks. NAS
appliances penetrated the low, middle and high end markets.
Data
Accelerators
Several techniques are being developed to speed up
access to data, and improve overall system performance. This denomination
includes architectural concepts such as parallel processing, data striping,
Content Delivery Networking, and Caching; hardware implementations of functions
usually implemented in software, such as TOE, as well latency minimization
techniques utilized in disk
drives, routers or
switches. Vendors
are actrively seeking partnership opportunities in this arena.
Virtualization
and Aggregation
Every system vendor has implemented a
virtualization solution in his networked storage architecture. In-band
implementations abound, out-of-band virtualization are not as prominent, and a
small number of vendors combine both in an implementation where in-bound
aggregation agents and out-of-band metada engines converge. This latter approach
is potentially the optimal solution. Virtualization will be widespread, often
embedded in a switch, a router or a system.
NAS virtualization, often
referred to as "aggregation", using a distributed file system. It is a
very powerful tool that is about to solve one of the major NAS drawbacks- the
management complexity of large scale NAS environment.
Content
Delivery Networking (CDN)
Additional emphasis is being given to
accessing data, fast and from any place. This spurs the need for placing data
closer to the user, giving birth to content delivery networking, with new
software to manage the content. While many factors drove a very important
movement to centralization, the pendulum is swinging the other way and we are
starting to see great amounts of distributed storage at the edge of the network,
closer to the user, requiring vast amounts of data replication. CDN market
potential is very promising.
Security and Security Management
As
storage networks span large numbers of devices, and encompass greater
heterogeneity of host types and host software, the importance of the
security issue has
significantly increased. Corporate information has become increasingly
vulnerable as customers, suppliers and employees access data via enterprise
portals and particularly via web services. September 11 events re-emphasized the
need for additional protection and security.
Preventing unwanted
accesses can be performed at the host, in the storage network, or at the storage
devices. Ultimately, storage devices will have to accept more responsibility for
enforcing access controls.
SAN and NAS convergence
Suppliers
are involved in a race to promote their design as an industry standard. The
storage and the networking industries are in turmoil, as many related
investments and product activities are at stake.
SAN and
NAS architectures will
converge in two or three steps and eventually merge. The exact outcome of the
convergence can take any one or several configurations discussed in the report.
Just like in any major new development, there won't be one technology that fits
everyone's needs. There will be complementary technologies that address
different market segments. The proper solution will likely differ by
application, connectivity requirements, scalability, performance, and price
sensitivity. Fibre Channel SAN has acquired enough momentum to ensure its
continued high acceptance rate for the next three years. For any architecture
to be successful, it will have to guarantee continuity and integration with
Fibre channel.
The User's View
To verify the realism
of market trends, Peripheral
Concepts, Inc. conducted a survey involving several hundred IT managers. The
survey reveals that SAN and NAS have enjoyed wide acceptance in the past 18
months. Storage capacity is distributed in the enterprise between storage
internal and external to the server, with a distinct trend toward external
storage. External capacity connected to SANs represents on the average 60% of
the total installed disk capacity of a site. A significant percentage of the
surveyed sites (45%) own more than one SAN and remain cautious in their
consolidation plans. NAS is not as widely deployed as SAN in the population
interviewed, but its growth rate will surpass SAN
Performance is first
on the list of most important storage characteristics. Many managers were
agreeably surprised with the performance improvement they experienced with their
SAN installation. Significant additions to end users' "most wanted"
list include adaptability (the ability to connect to other hardware or software
modules, and to changing applications), and security. Users are now also
concerned with density (bytes/IOPS/bandwidth per unit volume) and power
consumption
While performance is cited as the most important criterion
in storage selection, the prominent feature that motivates users to move to a
SAN configuration is scalability and manageability. Large sites rate better
storage utilization as the major benefit SAN brought to their operation.
Conclusion
SAN
and NAS market potential remains strong. While established vendors are forced to
scale down their R&D activity, several start-ups are actively building
innovative tools that promote new solutions, and constitute a threat to the
traditional architectural concepts. Vendors are advised to partner to acquire
new technologies, while opportunities for partnerships are still widely
available.
The
complete
report identifies the major contributors to SAN and NAS success, analyzes
the profile and strategic directions for a number of major contributors, and
produces features matrices for several key products. The report was issued in
September 2002 by Peripheral Concepts, Inc., a leading consulting firm
specializing in storage and storage management. Write to
reports@periconcepts.com or click
on the links for more information.
...Peripheral
Concepts profile |
